Word Origin & History

hash 1657, "to hack, chop," from Fr. hacher, from O.Fr. hache "axe." The noun "stew" is first recorded 1662, from the verb. Hash, short for hashish, is first recorded 1959 Amer.Eng. Hash browns, is short for hash browned potatoes (1917), with the -ed omitted, as in mash potatoes. The hash marks on a football field were so called 1960s, from similarity to hash marks, armed forces slang for "service stripes on the sleeve of a military uniform" (1909), supposedly called that because they mark the number of years one has had free food (hash) from the Army.

Example Sentences for hash

It may be connected with a verb “to hag,” meaning to cut in small pieces, and would then be cognate ultimately with “hash.”

First, you've made a hash of this cruise—you'll be a bold man to say no to that.

With the freedom of the camps he assaulted our ears and claimed the fellowship of men lost in the wilds of a hash house.

If too stiff, they will be dry and only a superior sort of hash ball.

The landlady admitted that a souffle was something not unlike a hash.

There is no definition for this word—nobody knows what hash is.

If we made rather a hash of things perhaps it was because we were rather trivial people.

As for poor Talien, who was playing Don Guritan, he made a hash of it every minute.

If you hash a cold duck in this manner, a quarter of an hour will be sufficient for stewing it; it having been cooked already.